I think i may have a bad chip or something, but i can't seem to upload my sketch when it grows to greater than 28674 bytes. I'm using Arduino 022 on MacOS.

Before you throw out the chip, I would check the fuse settings. If fuses are set to reserve a 4k boot section, addresses beyond 28672 (32k less 4k = 28672) would be write protected and so upload would fail.

I think i may have a bad chip or something, but i can't seem to upload my sketch when it grows to greater than 28674 bytes. I'm using Arduino 022 on MacOS.

Before you throw out the chip, I would check the fuse settings. If fuses are set to reserve a 4k boot section, addresses beyond 28672 (32k less 4k = 28672) would be write protected and so upload would fail.

Thanks for that. I didn't actually get the beta optiboot running, but i was able to get an older version (yet newer than the default optiboot that comes on the UNO) installed by using optifix (http://www.adafruit.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=19260).